Jinxed Jobs /Teachers in the WW/ What standards are we using... LONG

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 144337

> Potioncat:
> I don't think DD is the best Headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. He 
may 
> be the greatest wizard to hold the position, but he's no educator! 
> His priorities have a greater scope.

Alla:

I partially agree. I DO think that Dumbledore wants to educate his 
students, I really do, but as you said - his priorities have a 
greater scope or in other words he wears WAY too many hats. It may be 
necessary to the story that he is both the Headmaster of Hogwarts and 
leader of the antiVoldemort fight, but his priorities do get confused 
because of that, IMO.


Potioncat:
<SNIP>
Snape's ability is debatable, at least we 
> seem to debate it a lot.

Alla:

HAHA! Isn't it the truth. :-)



Potioncat:  
> I don't think the subject of Divination is a joke to the WW, 
although 
> JKR makes a joke of it. Or rather she makes a joke of the way 
> Trelawney teaches it. Although DD was thinking of discontinuing the 
> subject at Hogwarts, he's gone to great length to protect 
Trelawney's 
> prophesy. The DoM has a huge room of recorded predictions. Whether 
DD 
> disapproved of divination or felt it should be taught at some other 
> time (ie, after Hogwarts)he hired Trelawney to protect her.

Alla:

Trelawney's example is a PERFECT example IMO of how Dumbledore's 
several hats get confused. No, I don't think that Divination is a 
joke to WW, far from it. And Dumbledore himself calls Cassandra 
Trelawney extremely gifted Seer, so he acknowledges the truth of the 
subject, right?

Dumbledore hired Trelawney NOT because of her teaching skills ( HAHA 
again) but as you said to protect her. Erm... I wonder whether 
Dumbledore give the matter a little thought and considered that there 
are could be REALLY gifted Seer students in Hogwarts who may do 
incredibly well under good teacher. I understand his need to protect 
Trelawney, I really do, but I also think that he made a very faulty 
decision as Headmaster even if as leader of the resistance, he made 
the right decision.

Same thing with Snape (that is of course if one does not consider him 
a good teacher, if one does, please disregard what I am going to 
write).

IMO the main reason Dumbledore hired Snape is to protect him, to give 
him refuge at Hogwarts. This is great of course, but what about 
teaching Potions? Now, again, one may argue that Snape taught many 
students really well, but so far I see the students whom he torments 
really well, even if they will turn out to be the minority.

I speculate that the reason Dumbledore hired Snape had nothing to do 
with education either and EVERYTHING to do with fight against 
Voldemort.




Potioncat: 
> Don't ask me why he has Hagrid teaching! He was already established 
> and working for DD. 

Alla:

IMO - it is protection again. Hagrid was expelled, he really had not 
many places to go to and Dumbledore gave him a refuge again. As to 
Hagrid teaching , well I think he has the potential. :-)


> Miles:
> To an outsider Dumbledore acts corruptly. And he gets flak for it - 
but in
> the wizarding world being corrupt is common practice, so none is 
bothered
> too much.
> He has reasons to act like he does. Reasons to keep Trelawny, 
reasons to get
> Hagrid nearer to staff and Harry (!), reasons not to let the 
possibly most
> skilled member of his staff teaching DADA. But, again, to an 
outsider
> Dumbledore is just another networker, using Hogwarts for his own 
best.

Alla:

I am not sure which outsider are you talking about here, Miles, but 
not to me, no. :-)He does not act corruptly, he just acts sometimes 
stupidly IMO, sometimes because he is juggling way too many 
responsibilities and sometimes because he likes giving people second 
chances who IMO do not appreciate those second chances.

Yes, he has reasons to do what you said, but what I am asking myself 
is :

a) Whether those reasons have anything to do with education or with 
fight against Voldemort?

b) Whether those reasons are good enough for me to think that 
Dumbledore is a competent Headmaster.



> Miles (small stones only, please)

Alla, goes to look for the stone to throw at Miles. MAHAHAHA



> Pippin:
> We do know that wizard kids assume emotional independence and
> responsibility for them  much sooner than ours does. We'd 
> never let our pre-teens muck around with anything as lethal as a 
wand
> with no supervision, we'd never leave a group of boys and girls 
> overnight behind closed doors under the supervision of a few 
seventeen year
> olds, or leave a thirteen year old on his own for two weeks in a 
place 
> like Diagon Alley, much less send an eleven year old into the heart 
of London
> with a shopping list and a great big bag of gold. In fact, I suspect
> if *we* had wands, we'd be told to keep them under lock and key,
> and separate from the spellbooks. <g>

Alla:

Nope, sorry Pippin, but putting aside the possession of the wands of 
course, I don't see wizardlings assuming emotional independence any 
earlier than your usual muggle child. Or, at least when I was growing 
up.

Do you know how incredibly surprised I was when I came to USA to 
learn that kids are not allowed to stay home by themselves without 
adult looking after them till they are twelve or thirteen years old? 
Erm... I was staying home by myself when my mom needed to go shopping 
since I was five or six years old and erm... that was very NORMAL 
situation, you know for many kids. When I was a preteen ( eleven? 
twelve? is still a preteen, right?) I was hopping on a bus, then on  
a subway, then on the bus again by myself to go visit my grandmother 
which lived in suburb of the city.

So, maybe by the standards of american kids wisarding kids seem to be 
more independent, that is true, but I really see nothing unusual, 
honestly.

But them going places by themselves are really NOT what I was talking 
about.

I was talking about their responses to childhood traumas and I 
believe that nothing in canon shows that they are more resilient to 
that.


Pippin:
I don't expect this to change, and
> as long as it doesn't, the kids are going to have to deal with 
Snape 
> and his kind on his own.

Alla:

I don't see how it is connected. I believe as I said upthread that 
the absence of Snape in Hogwarts (I hope) at the end of  the books 
will signal the change in kids NOT dealing with Snape on their own.

Pippin:
There is nothing Snape can do
> (aside from magic) to reach inside Harry and *make* him
> feel humiliated, any more than Harry can reach inside Snape
> and *make* him feel sadistic (although I'm sure that Snape
> feels that's exactly what Harry does. )

Alla:

Sorry, I completely disagree with that. Snape cannot to make Harry 
feel humiliated and the solution is very easy IMO. I am sure you know 
where I am going with it - Snape can LEAVE Harry ALONE, you know NOT 
to insult him. I think your argument misses the first step - Snape 
started the chain of events and Harry just reacts to it. Sure for his 
own good, he may need to learn to laugh off some of the insults, but 
I really don't get how the fact that Harry does not seem capable to 
do it yet makes Snape less culpable, you know. To me, he is the 
instigator, the aggressor in their interactions and what Harry needs 
to do has absolutely nothing to do with making Snape responsible for 
his misdeeds, IMO.

Besides, since I am convinced that Snape killing Dumbledore is just 
the part of who Snape is and it just shows his character flaws on the 
larger scale, I think it is practically impossible for Harry to laugh 
at Snape now.

You know, sometimes I speculate to myself that the only reason JKR 
decided to make Snape kill Dumbledore is to drive home  the idea that 
Snape is really really bad. Of course, I have nothing here to support 
my speculation,  and it is entirely possible that JKR planned for 
Snape to commit this killing from the beginning, but sometimes I am 
not sure that JKR planned the series as tightly as she claims.

Therefore sometimes I think what if initially JKR planned to have 
Snape as really horrible person, etc. But then she realized that many 
fans are not buying it, that they see him as a suffering soul looking 
for redemption ( hey, I thought that he had a  lot of guilt bottled 
up in himself, poor dear prior to HBP for all my immense dislike of 
his teaching tactics), so she decided to show us who Snape REALLY is. 
That is just my overactive imagination. :-)

Pippin:
> Harry  may not be able to control how he feels, but it is
> entirely up to him what he does about the feelings. He can
> sulk and scowl and seethe until he finally blows up, or he can 
> grin and say, "Enchantingly nasty!"  
> 
> A thirteen year old is not, IMO, too young to understand this,
> in fact many of them figure it out for themselves. 

Alla:

Sure, some thirteen year olds can figure it out or not, but whether 
they do it or not, does it really matter to show that Snape is 
culpable?

I think it is demanding way too much from thirteen year old, but that 
is IMO obviously.


Pippin: 
> Dumbledore says that Snape is wounded, and that's why he
> hasn't overcome his feelings about Harry's father. DD blames himself
> for forgetting this. Now maybe Harry can't overcome his feelings 
> about Snape because he is more wounded than
> Dumbledore thinks he is, but Harry has learned to laugh off insults
> from Draco and Vernon, who used to terrify him, whereas we've
> never seen Snape manage to laugh off an insult from anybody.
> In fact, we've never seen him laugh at all.

Alla:

Erm... yes, I do think that in many aspects Dumbledore underestimated 
Harry's wounds. And Harry may have learned to laugh off Draco and 
Vernon's insults, but even in HBP he says that experience taught him 
to stay out of Vernon's reach, so I am not exactly sure that laughter 
is the most helpful weapon Harry uses against Vernon, although I 
agree that laughter is a GREAT weapon sometimes.


JMO.

Alla